Replaced by His First Love
"But the quiet... it's loud, Mommy. It sounds like the dark when my voice was gone. Don't let it stay quiet. Please. Talk to me."
The fear-of-silence was a new trauma, a shadow left behind by the fragment's cost. He didn't want the peace of the sanctuary; he wanted the noise of the war, because at least the war had a sound he understood.
"I'm talking, Leo. I'm right here," I murmured, my voice breaking.
I pulled him tighter, and as I did, I felt the chain shift.
Within the sanctuary's wards, the 1.5-meter radius no longer felt like a physical execution. The agonizing ice-tug at my ribs eased, replaced by a resonance warmth—a rhythmic, heavy thrumming that felt like a distant hearth.